Gloomy Sunday
Arrow Releasing | Release Date: November 7, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 22 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
9
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
A beautiful period piece, set against one of the world's glorious cities, adding poignancy. Twists and turns heighten a gradually accruing effect, building to a risky moment of truth, a coup de théâtre that is as daring as it is satisfying. Read full review
80
TimeRichard Schickel
The film is high romance, rather like those American movies of the 1940s -- people snatching at happiness in a world aflame. We don't make them anymore -- stupid us --but we ought to be glad someone does. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarrit Ingman
Moments of black comedy break up the melodrama – a newsreel depicts the song's "victims" and a Nazi secretary rages against her Duden grammar manual – but the overall tone is still that of a four-alarm weeper. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Suicides are proliferating in the city -- is the song to blame, or is it the tenor of the times? Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
It's an old-fashioned romantic triangle, told with schmaltzy music on the sound track and a heroine with a smoky singing voice, and then the Nazis turn up and it gets very complicated and heartbreaking. Read full review
75
New York PostV.A. Musetto
The fine cast, the elegant settings and the swoony title song somehow draw you in. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Strange, compelling and hard to classify, it's both a romance and a character study, and it's set against a historical backdrop. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Long on atmosphere and Old World charm. Read full review
70
VarietyDerek Elley
The iconic '30s song "Gloomy Sunday" gets a distinctive celluloid setting in this well-played, cleverly scripted pic in which music and character are inextricably combined. Read full review
70
Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf
It's possible that Gloomy Sunday is more "significant" than it is compelling. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
It's old-fashioned, sometimes accomplished, syrupy and, at its intermittent best, absorbing. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Is it possible for an historically -based Holocaust movie to be schmaltzy? This one sure comes close. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Lushly engaging, even if it covers some of the same ground as ''The Pianist'' with less artistry and more melodrama. Read full review
60
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
Gloomy Sunday's success in transcending its own clichés and conventionality -- at least until the morose finale -- is due in part to the story's primal romantic pull, aided by attractive actors who either stare longingly into each other's eyes or cavort in states of undress. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
The Holocaust subplot is contrived and schematic. Yet the central love triangle is fairly compelling, aided by Krol's fine performance. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Who knew that one of Billie Holiday's most haunting songs was written in Budapest in the 1930s? I didn't until I saw Gloomy Sunday, a German film, shot in Hungary and directed by Rolf Schubel, that I enjoyed quite a lot, even though it's all over the map in more ways than one.
60
Film ThreatEric Campos
This is a truly strange love story that definitely grew on me as it ran its course, or perhaps it was just that infectious song sinking its hooks into me. Read full review
50
The New York TimesStephen Holden
The story is so schematically histrionic that the bringing in of the Holocaust late in the day feels exploitative and unearned. Gloomy Sunday is an oddity that takes itself much too seriously. Read full review
50
Washington PostDesson Thomson
It's a piquant story but unfortunately the movie creaks with European-style artifice. It tells its story in a rather cinematically stilted style, and some of the dramatic moments come perilously close to unintentional parody. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Entertaining in spite its dubious accuracy. Read full review
40
Village VoiceEdward Crouse
Dissolving four characters' lives into the dank smoke of the bitterest of torch songs, Gloomy Sunday fashions an apocryphal, pretty, and somewhat pat biography of the title ballad. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
There's a whiff of exploitation about any movie that claims the Holocaust as a “backdrop,” and Rolf Schübel’s treacly tale of three men lovesick for the same blue-eyed beauty fairly reeks of it. Read full review
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